Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection Review

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | The Konami Digital Eclipse team boasted they had put a lot into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga collection. I took that to mean the same marketing message we see when repackaging beloved games.
This may be the first time we have managed to collect a really great collection of these 13 games. Many of them are extremely difficult to find in their original forms and can last for years.
Cowabunga not only collects fan favorites but also has 2,000+ items that fans can explore in Turtles’ lair. These include rare concept art, soundtracks with new track names, nostalgia magazine ads, and many more.
There are some sour points, but they are important. The online component was not functional at launch. When it does, there is jittering.
Digital Eclipse has done a good job of reducing latency when playing alone, but there are still many areas for improvement compared with other TMNT beat’em-ups.

Table of Contents

TMNT Cowabunga Collection | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

For a casual fan like me, most of the items in this collection were a delight. If you are lucky enough to find one “cheap”, I have long longed to own one those rare arcade cabinets. They can be found for as low as $50.

Digital Eclipse has gathered everything you need, both good and bad.

It is an absolute joy to be able to play any of my favorite childhood games without having to do anything.
Some of the Cowabunga Collection’s gems include the NES version Tournament Fighters and the arcade version TMNT: Turtles in Time. These games could not be legally played until you found an arcade cabinet or board from that era.
Digital Eclipse now has all the good and bad stuff in one place. You can find everything, from the notoriously hard TMNT on NES to the highly regarded Super Nintendo version of Turtles in Time.

Many of these games look similar, but there were some important improvements that will be remembered by hardcore gamers.
Turtles in Time Arcade is an example of this. It has some new enemies that are not available in the home version. As if that weren’t enough, I love how many options each game offers.
You can enable cheats or consult an interactive guide. This will show you how to attack or uncover secrets that you might have missed. It can also rewind to prevent you from becoming turtle soup. If you prefer to watch a perfect playthrough of your favorite games, you can do that too.
You can do all of this on YouTube, but it is great to have everything in one place.
You can also control remapping to make things more your own. The screen can be set to expand or shrink from its original aspect ratio of 4:3 to full. This simply increases the square to fill the screen, while keeping the original aspect ratio of 4:3.
You can apply filters, such as a Monitor, CRT TV or LCD effect. Depending on your preferences, the border can also be turned on and off.
Although I don’t use many filters, I do find them useful. However, it is a nice option for anyone who enjoys an old-fashioned experience.

The Turtles’ Lair is a multimedia mega-collective. I found myself staying here much longer than I expected. I was able to look through the comic covers and see the strange magazine marketing of the 1990s, which brought me back to my childhood memories of reading the latest Ninja Turtle Comic and then being hit in the face with an advertisement for the next game
You will find box art in the US and Japan, as well as manuals in both Japanese and English. There is also a complete soundtrack for each game. I was reminded of my childhood days when I would be slapped in the face by an ad for the next game.
There’s so much to see, many of which I haven’t seen anywhere else. The search function allows you to quickly browse the vast array of content and not have to manually go through it. It was a great experience to see all the covers together. (Yes, that is a humble brag.
Each of the 13 games has its own set if enhancements, though this is not always true. 11 of the 13 games include Japanese versions. You can toggle between them before you start, which is great as some games have unique quirks. For starters, I have noticed different voices and outfits that make the Turtles appear more like teens. It’s fascinating to observe these changes firsthand.
You can choose your starting level, turn off god mode, remove penalty bombs thrown by a Foot Soldier, instant kill you if idle for too long, or even a “Nightmare Mode” if you’re feeling ill.
Tournament Fighters for the Sega Genesis is a little lacking in features. There are no bosses to choose from, and Radical Rescue on the Game Boy’s TMNT3: Radical Rescue allows you only to change some map icons.
Selfishly, though, I wish that each game had a god mode or unlimited continue so that I could play at my own pace and not have to deal with the unfairness of 1990s game design, particularly when it comes down to fighting game bosses. Perhaps I could try my hand at video gaming for a change.
The Cowabunga Collection’s Game Boy section will have TMNT, Fall of the Foot Clan and Back from the Sewers. Each of these are side-scrolling adventure/platforming games that will have you working your way through Metroid-like levels to find your friends.
Although I only had a few of these games as a child, I found that I enjoyed hopping back into them all. Although they are simple, I was still amazed at how much fun they were.
The NES selection also includes the famously hard TMNT game by Konami. It looks like a fever dream because it features mostly unrecognizable enemies aside from the main characters from the TV series.
The rewind function was a real workout for me on my trip down memory lane. There are some great entries in the NES selection, including the TMNT 2 Arcade port, which was quite impressive for being squeezed onto a NES cartridge, as well as TMNT 3 The Manhattan Project, which are both excellent beat-’em ups in their own right.
Each section features a different version of TMNT Tournament Fighters for the NES, Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Super Nintendo. This is important because they weren’t ports that had similar moves or designs. Each was created from scratch as a separate project.
The Genesis version features a more grittier artwork and a crisper sound design. It also has a story that pits the Turtles against their evil clones in order to save their friends. I loved this fighter when I was a kid, but it doesn’t really stand out against other fighters from its time.
The SNES version was more like Street Fighter 2 clone. This actually included fighters such as Armaggon from Archie Comics. It’s also interesting because it introduced super moves just before Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.
The NES version combined basic fighting game mechanics and an orb power-up. This format is what I would imagine a NES Smash Bros version would use – there are very few decent fighting games on the NES.
The Genesis collection also includes TMNT Hypersotone Heist. This is a version of Turtles in Time that was available in arcades. Another beat-’em up, you will take control of one Turtle and battle through time with characters from the series such as Super Shredder or pizza-eating aliens.
Although it’s very similar to the arcade version and the Super Nintendo, one thing I really enjoyed was the dash move. This allows you to zip across the screen with a dedicated button, and hit enemies from both sides. It is much easier than double tapping a direction like the SNES.
The SNES allows you to throw enemies at it, something that is missing from Hypersone. However, there are some new levels to this game that were not available in the arcade. These include a Technodrom stage.
Because it was easily accessible at home, I could spend hours playing Turtles in Time without worrying about it getting hungry all day, the SNES’s Turtles in Time will always be one of my favorite games. Because Foot Clan is a great way to get your feet wet.
I was eager to find achievements and trophies that would unlock cool features, but the “challenges”, as they are called here, are disappointing. As you completed the games, there were only one achievement.

Digital Eclipse has put so much effort and care into all the components that it is truly disappointing that this part feels so rushed. These games have been a challenge for the entire community over the past 20 years. There could have been more creativity.
The online experience is another sour note. It is mostly awful. The collection’s strongest component – the four-player cooperative with rollback netcode that makes your button presses 1:1 for fighting games – is now a barely playable mess.
Jumping in to TMNT Arcade will result in a screeching halt or at most five to ten frames per second. This problem was seen on the Switch, Xbox and PlayStation 5 as well as PC.
This is when you can find a game to join. It worked slightly better when I accepted a friend’s request to participate, with lower input delay and lag, but I still get poppy audio issues when connecting to my friends’ list.
My friend and I had a great time playing Tournament Fighters on the SNES. However, at launch there were no games for any of these fighters. This is unacceptable and must be rectified as soon as possible.

Input Latency

Let’s now talk about input latency. This criticism has been levelled at retro collections like the Mega Man X Legacy Collection and the Disney Afternoon Collection.
To test The Cowabunga Collection, which I did in solo mode, I set the Xbox Series X at 1080p 120 frames/second with auto low latency enabled. The camera recorded off-screen at 1080p 120fps and made button presses at 1080p 120fps. The Samsung 8K Q900 Series TV was used for this. It had Input Signal Plus turned on and Game Mode on.
According to my calculations, Xbox Series X is closest to the SNES version. This was done using the same method as the older Sharp LCD (Model LC62C42U), via a coax input.
This is how the math works: one frame at 120fps equals 8.3ms latency. So, by counting the frames between button presses and the action being displayed on the screen, you can estimate the latency.
Although it’s not perfect, this gives an indication of the location of this collection. I measured the time between button presses and action on my SNES. This gave me an idea of the input latency, which was consistently around 58ms. The input latency on Xbox Series X was between 83ms and 91ms.
The Switch OLED in handheld mode was able to display 99.6ms delay. I also experienced 141.1ms delay when using a wired Pro controller (Pro wired communications on), which had 107.9ms – 124.5ms with wired Communication off). The PS5 displayed around 157.7ms delay with ALMM (auto-low latency mode) set to automatic and 120Hz output set as automatic.
So, I discovered that I was getting between 83 and 157.7 milliseconds total input delay – this was near the low end on the Xbox Series X. It was also middle of the road on Switch OLED. And a little on the higher side for the PS5.
These are significant increases over the COAX of 58ms on my older display. These games are much slower if you have played them on their original platforms.
As I discovered as soon as I began playing, I turned on all the options I could to reduce the delay. I can imagine that a CRT would also help to reduce this gap.
We also tested the modern TMNT Shredders Renge on Xbox Series X. It consistently returned a 49.8ms input delays. It would appear that 83 to157 is not a very good result.
Digital Eclipse was unable to answer my questions about the delay in input. A representative stated that they did not see any difference in input latency between consoles while playing locally. Online play can have an impact on game performance, especially if there are four players. While modern displays have more latency than older CRT TVs and many have gaming settings, it is still possible for them to be slower than old CRT TVs. This is especially true when compared with the Shredders’ Revenge.

Verdict

The whole TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection was clearly created by a team who loves the TMNT – both the games and the comics.
The collection is not only filled with some of the most iconic Ninja Turtle games (and other ones), but Digital Eclipse has added a treasure trove full of original Ninja Turtles art and other creations.
You’ll find a lot of cheat codes, new features and behind-the scenes images. It is truly disappointing that it is so difficult to find a match online, and it can often be very slow to get into a game.
It could also be better to reduce the input delay. Despite this, it is the best complete TMNT collection. This collection is a shell of a collection if you are nostalgic for the Turtles gaming era and don’t want to spend nearly $550 on eBay.